Cloaking and Search Engines

[dons1]

Hi all!

I've been reading stuff that suggests I should cloak my affiliate links. 2 questions really:-

1. How do the SEs view "redirects" - good or bad?
2. Do I really need to cloak to prevent "theft" - I'd like a straw poll of our experts please.

Thanks
John

www.clanfootball.com
www.clanfootball.blogspot.com

[Karen Mac]

Re: Cloaking and Search Engines

Define what you mean by cloaking. Lots of people use redirects and they are fine as long as you arent HIDING or fooling someone into believing they are on a site they arent, including search engines. Thats why you should use 301 redirects for a permanently MOVED page or site.

Read what google says about it.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66355

Draw your own conclusions.

I totally dont understand the question cloak to prevent THEFT thing, what would they be stealing? You are dishing them to the page anyway so how would it change a thing?

Karen

[dons1]

Re: Cloaking and Search Engines

Thanks Karen.

It's just that I've been reading stuff on affliliate links and that some folks are stealing / changing the link (I suppose the affliate ID?) which allows them to get paid for a purchase which should have gone to you. And that you can prevent this by "cloaking" your url string with all the info. by using a redirect page?

I wasn't trying to fool anyone else - just the thieves (if in fact they exist).

John
www.clanfootball.com
www.clanfootball.blogger.com

[dons1]

Re: Cloaking and Search Engines

By the way, wrong url last message. Should be www.clanfootball.blogspot.com

John

[Karen Mac]

Re: Cloaking and Search Engines

The only way I can imagine this being done is if you have spyware downloaded to your system. This would give them access to CHANGE the affiliate id. I cant see otherwise how they would have access to otherwise hijack your url.

Karen